The Maltese Labour Corps during World War I

The participation by Maltese troops abroad has been limited. During the First World War Malta was not directly involved, yet during this time a significant overseas deployment did take place. It did not take the form of front line troops; rather it was some 5,600 locally enlisted men who volunteered for overseas service with the Maltese Labour Corps. At least 120 men lost their lives on active service, very often from disease. They are buried across various cemeteries mostly in Greece. It is a deployment that has received little attention and is all but forgotten. This paper seeks to tell their story and to remember the service these men provided.peer-reviewe

Pressure rig for repetitive casting

The invention is a pressure rig for repetitive casting of metal. The pressure rig performs like a piston for feeding molten metal into a mold. Pressure is applied to an expandable rubber diaphragm which expands like a balloon to force the metal into the mold. A ceramic cavity which holds molten metal is lined with blanket-type insulating material, necessitating only a relining for subsequent use and eliminating the lengthy cavity preparation inherent in previous rigs. In addition, the expandable rubber diaphragm is protected by the insulating material thereby decreasing its vulnerability to heat damage. As a result of the improved design the life expectancy of the pressure rig contemplated by the present invention is more than doubled. Moreover, the improved heat protection has allowed the casting of brass and other alloys with higher melting temperatures than possible in the conventional pressure rigs

Evaluating the Role of Brown vs. Board of Education in School Equalization, Desegregation, and the Income of African Americans

In this paper we study the long-term labor market implications of school resource equalization before Brown and school desegregation after Brown. For cohorts born in the South in the 1920s and 1930s, we find that racial disparities in measurable school characteristics had a substantial influence on black males' earnings and educational attainment measured in 1970, albeit one that was smaller in the later cohorts. When we examine the income of male workers in 1990, we find that southern-born blacks who finished their schooling just before effective desegregation occurred in the South fared poorly compared to southern-born blacks who followed behind them in school by just a few years.

Book Review:The Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad by Gordon Darnell Newby

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HTR Centennial Celebration: Words of Welcome

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The Qurʾān: An Introduction by Anna M. Gade.

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Vital Sign Ontology

We introduce the Vital Sign Ontology (VSO), an extension of the Ontology for General Medical Science (OGMS) that covers the consensus human vital signs: blood pressure, body temperature, respiratory rate, and pulse rate. VSO provides a controlled structured vocabulary for describing vital sign measurement data, the processes of measuring vital signs, and the anatomical entities participating in such measurements. VSO is implemented in OWL-DL and follows OBO Foundry guidelines and best practices. If properly developed and extended, we believe the VSO will find applications for the EMR, clinical informatics, and medical device communities

Light-induced anthocyanin pigmentation in transgenic Lc petunia : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Plant Biology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Introduction of Leaf colour (Lc). a bHLH transcription factor from maize, under the control of the CaMV35S promoter into petunia (cv. Mitchell) plants resulted in enhanced anthocyanin pigmentation in vegetative tissues. Anthocyanin biosynthesis was observed to be dependent on the level of light the plants were grown under: plants grown in a plastic greenhouse remained green, while plants exposed to high-light were dark purple. The nature of this response to light and the associated molecular mechanisms were the focus of this investigation. Molecular analysis of gene expression in Mitchell petunia showed that light induced the expression of the early flavonoid structural genes, as well as flavonol synthase (FLS) required for flavonol production. Light induced both the early and late structural genes required for anthocyanin biosynthesis in the transgenic Lc Mitchell petunia plants, but reduced the expression of FLS. Light-induced flavonoid gene expression was examined under three light treatments: shade (50 - 350 µmol m -2 sec -1 ); ambient-greenhouse (300 - 750 µmol m -2 sec -1 ) and high-light (750 µmol m -2 sec -1 ). The level of flavonoid gene expression was dependent upon light intensity. High-light was required to maximally activate anthocyanin pigmentation in Lc petunia. Expression of the Lc transgene remained unchanged irrespective of light intensity, indicating that the light-induced changes in anthocyanin synthesis were not due to variable expression of the transgene. Anthocyanin regulation occurs primarily at the transcriptional level, and two classes of transcription factors. Myb and bHLH. are generally involved. Transient expression studies using several exogenous Myb transcription were carried out using shade-grown (non-induced) Lc petunia material. The induction of coloured cells in the treated tissue supports the idea that the bHLH transgene (LC) is interacting with an endogenous Myb under high-light conditions, resulting in the activation of the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway and accumulation of anthocyanin pigments. A partial sequence of a candidate endogenous Myb transcription factor from petunia was cloned. It was light-induced and shares structural features with other anthocyanin-regulating Myb transcription factors, particularly An2 from petunia. This Myb in combination with LC may be responsible for the light-induced anthocyanin pigmentation observed in Lc petunia